RSeries Gaiden: Vengeance
by Regulus
Summary: RSeries Side Story 4. Takes place after Order: Reassembled. Rodolphus Lestrange's wife was murdered by Harry Potter. Voldemort has tapped him to go on a mission to exact revenge. But is that the real purpose behind the Dark Lord's plan?


"The wards are weakening, My Lord." Said a man in flowing, black robes. He was kneeling and had an almost luminescent white mask covering his face. "We can begin at any time." 

"Very good." Purred Lord Voldemort, sitting on his throne. "Take the strongest men you can gather and attack. Move swiftly and move silently. I want no one to see or hear anything. The only things you'll leave in your wake are four dead bodies and the Dark Mark."

"Yes, My Lord." Said the man, getting to his feet and quickly slipping from the room. His name was Rodolphus Lestrange. Harry Potter had killed his wife. The Dark Lord had seen the fury in his eyes and had tapped him to lead a strike on Potter's house. Rodolphus was all too eager to exact revenge on the little vermin that had slain his Bella.

His team was to get in, get the job done, and get out. This wasn't to be a terror mission, where the more people who were killed, the better. This was a tactical assault against the bane of the Dark Lord's existence. Rodolphus wouldn't take many. There were very few people in this world that he trusted with his life. He would bring six at most.

The prison didn't suit Rodolphus. Unlike their master, the Death Eaters were affected by the Dementors like anyone else. And for months, he must have been seen as a buffet for the soul-hungry creatures that still glided through the dark corridors. The living quarters designated for the Death Eaters was kept away from the Dementors' patrol routes, thankfully. Though it was bleak, it was still safe. Rodolphus had spent much of his time in what passed as a lounge, thinking about how many ways he could skin Potter and torture him without actually killing him. It was amazing what a person could live through, after all.

He pushed open the door to the lounge, bringing a hand up to remove his mask. Over a dozen of his peers were loitering about the room, looking bored. A smirk rose on Rodolphus' face as he asked, "Antonin, Rab, Walden, would you care to come with me? Our master has given me the honored privilege of leading an assault on Harry Potter's house."

The reaction from those not addressed was immediate. Rodolphus silenced them with a dark glare. "If any of you take issue with what the Dark Lord has chosen, you can always go and tell him he was wrong!"

This got the desired result. The rest of the Death Eaters, still glaring, quieted down. Many returned to what they had been doing.

Walden Macnair was the first to walk over. "Our Lord giving you the chance at revenge, huh? Nice of him."

"Yes, I thought." Rodolphus said, smirking again. "You in?"

"And get the chance to kill Potter? I'd be crazy not to accept." Macnair said.

"You sure you want me along for the ride?" Asked Rabastan Lestrange. "I don't want to take your kill, Rod."

"So be satisfied with taking out his relatives." Rodolphus said. "Antonin, you in or not?"

Antonin Dolohov just nodded once. Rodolphus chuckled. Dolohov wasn't a talkative man.

"That settles it, then. We'll head out early tonight and hit the place up at midnight. Our Lord wants us to be as stealthy as we can, so no dramatics, understand?" Rodolphus said, addressing the three men that were to be with him. "We go in, slaughter the lot of them, and get out."

"Isn't the place under surveillance?" Asked Macnair.

"Yeah. So we may have to plow the road, so to speak." Rodolphus said, grinning.

"Sounds like fun. I could do with a break from this place." Rabastan said.

"Go and get anything you might need. Rest up. We'll be leaving in three hours." Rodolphus said.

"What do you plan to do to Potter?" Dolohov asked, his gravelly voice out of place in the relatively silent room.

"Gonna carve the little bastard up like a pig. He's going to pay for what he did to Bella. He'll be bawling and pleading for death by the time I'm done with him." Rodolphus growled, turning and stalking from the room. There was work to be done before their mission began.

Across the prison, Lord Voldemort still sat on his throne, eyes shining madly as they stared at the door across the room. Rodolphus Lestrange, once one of the finest he had to offer. Now he was little more than a vengeful specter of his former self. The Dark Lord had no place for cowards seeking revenge. This had nothing to do with killing Potter. This was all a test to see if he could replicate the circumstances behind the boy's power surge that he had witnessed at the Ministry.

If no one was there to calm him after the Death Eaters were slain, what would happen? Would the boy paint the walls of his house with the blood of his relatives? Would he simply collapse in a heap? Or would he do something unexpected again?

Voldemort was planning to send a pair of spies after Rodolphus' team, to sit back and observe the happenings from a distance. They were both equipped with magical eyes, two of the first of his Death Eaters to accept the proposal. Being able to see through walls was quite useful. His only regret was that he could not be there to watch it unfold for himself. But being too close would alert the boy. He had to remain back.

No matter. He could extract the memories of his spies and watch at his own leisure.

It was all just a matter of time...

**o**O**o**O**o**O**o**O**o**O**o**O**o**

Author's Notes: This was originally intended to be a prologue to The Citadel of Azkaban, but I felt that it seemed out of place. But I still wanted to have it there. Some of what happens in chapter 1 might end up being vague if I didn't put this up to read. I'm still hammering out how I want to handle book 6, so it's good I have the rest of the month to prepare. These gaiden ficlets, side stories to the main books, are normally outside of what would be 'required' reading to keep track of things. But the first (Terry's story) and this one, I think, are important enough to include in the overall scheme of things.

I haven't started on Chapter 1 yet, of course - it'll probably take the whole month just to assemble the notes from 3 years of ideas. I wrote the R-Series for the final two books. I've finally gotten through the canon and I intend to have some fun with things now that I'm free from their confines. I have no idea how long books 6 and 7 will be as of right now. Maybe once I jot up a chapter guide for the book.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you lot in a few weeks.


End file.
